It began as a night of celebration. After the Saints' Sept. 22 home victory over the Arizona Cardinals, NFL Network commentator and former Saints player Darren Sharper went out on the town in New Orleans.

The venerated former safety met a woman at a bar in the Central Business District. They kept drinking into the early hours of the next day, and a group made their way to another bar. At the end of the night of drinking, the woman went back to Sharper's apartment on Tchoupitoulas Street.

News of the rape investigation in New Orleans broke after Sharper was booked in Los Angeles on Jan. 17 on two unrelated rape charges there.

Sharper, 38, a former star safety who helped the Saints win the Super Bowl in 2010, has not been arrested or charged in the New Orleans case.

Sharper has been cooperating with the investigation, said his attorney Nandi Campbell, who added she hoped the allegations in Los Angeles would not cause authorities -- or the public -- to jump to conclusions.

"I think it's unfair to say, 'Oh there's three, so he must be guilty,'" Campbell said in an interview. "They are three totally independent cases."

According to the New Orleans police report, the woman, whose age was not given, told police she went to a "couple" of bars, where she consumed a "large amount of alcohol" on the night of Sept. 22 during a night of bar hopping that continued into the early morning of Sept. 23. She said she met Sharper at one of the bars and he took her back to his apartment at 701 Tchoupitoulas St., according to the report.

That's where she said the assault occurred sometime on Sept. 23. "The victim stated she did not consent to any sexual encounter," the report says.

She called police and gave her statement to Special Victims Unit Detective Derrick Williams the next day, Sept. 24 at 6:30 a.m., the report says.

NOPD spokeswoman Remi Braden said detectives consulted with prosecutors "very soon" after the case was reported, as is typical with sex-crimes investigations. "This case is no different from others," she said.

Campbell says there is no evidence of a sex crime and she believes surveillance video shows the accuser "willingly" following Sharper.

"She later claimed to have a vague recollection of the night and morning events," Campbell said in a statement. "Of course vague recollection is often times consistent with consuming large amounts of alcohol."

Campbell said there were "numerous witnesses" who saw the woman on her own and also saw her with Sharper. Some of the witnesses said Sharper was "mingling" with other bar-goers. At the end of the night, the woman left voluntarily with Sharper, Campbell said.

"No evidence suggests or implies that a sexual assault occurred," Campbell said. "The totality of the witnesses' statements and the physical evidence support the police department and district attorney's decision not to file criminal charges at this time."

Both the LAPD and the NOPD classified the complaints as the type of rape that occurs when one person is unable to consent to sex, possibly due to being intoxicated, and the offender knew or should have known of the victim's incapacity. A simple rape conviction in Louisiana carries no more than 25 years in prison.

The LAPD has said only that Sharper was accused of two different sexual assaults in West Los Angeles, one in October and another earlier this month.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles District Attorney's office said no charges had been filed as of Friday. Sharper is free on $200,000 bond. He is due in court in Los Angeles on Feb. 14.

Immediately after Sharper's arrest in California, the NFL Network said he was suspended without pay from his job, where he has been an in-studio analyst since 2012.

Sharper spent two seasons with the Saints, from 2009-10. He helped lead the team to a 13-3 regular-season record and a Super Bowl XLIV win against the Indianapolis Colts in his first season in New Orleans with nine interceptions. In 2010, Sharper's last season in the NFL, he played in only eight of 16 games and didn't have any interceptions.

During his 14 seasons with the NFL from 1997 to 2010, he played on the Green Bay Packers for eight seasons and the Minnesota Vikings for four.

Shaper was a two-time, first-team All Pro and was named to five Pro Bowls. He was part of the NFL All-Decade Team for the 2000s.